04.15.24 MEETING MINUTES - Laserfiche WebLink

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Minutes of the Regular Meeting of Council Monday, April 15, 2024 Page 6 done for our community. You are a legacy. Here tonight is Angie Rich, my appointee to be our next Finance Director. I welcome Angie and look forward to working with her. As always, our first responders and dispatchers at Police and Fire remain on the job and ready to respond as needed as is evidenced this evening. I know we all appreciate their dedication and professionalism. Councilman Williams, Ms. Wolgamuth and I attended an Active Shooter Training at Mayfield Village Police Department a few weeks ago. I know it gave us clear and better insights as to the challenges police officers face in emergency situations, particularly when life or death decisions must be made in a matter of seconds. Susan Jerome, the Service Department Secretary, retired at the end of 2023. Replacing her is Lisa Lesner, who had been working for the Village as a police dispatcher since 2017. Lisa is doing an excellent job and we are happy to have her in the position. We are anticipating more retirements in the next couple of years in all of our Departments and the Civil Service Commission has been working overtime to schedule testing and certify eligibility lists. I continue to work with Department Heads to ensure that all vacancies actually need to be filled before doing so. During this time of reduced revenue, we are trying to find ways to do more with less, without risking either employee or public safety. I am working more closely than ever with Economic Development Manager John Marquart on creative ways to expand our business base and replace lost revenues, and I am confident that our planning, hard work and persistence will lead to increased revenues over the next several years. Our limited available commercial space is a challenge to us. To the extent that privately -owned commercial buildings and spaces remain unoccupied by employees, we will continue to lose income tax dollars. To that end, we are in frequent touch with our private industry representatives. We encourage them to utilize their space or consider selling it, so that someone else can use it, and we offered to work with our businesses to assist in finding commercial purchasers or lessees to use the space. On a bright note, we are very happy to see new ownership of Mt. Vernon Square, which consists of twin 43,000 square foot buildings on 7.1 acres of land. The property, located in the southwest quadrant of Beta Drive and SOM Center Road, had many vacancies and was in need of modernization. The new owners have pledged to improve the property and breathe new life into it, and we look forward to working together to bring it into the 21 st Century and optimize its use. The Beta Overlay Zoning district, which was approved by voters in 2022, will help provide some needed flexibility for Mt. Veron Square, as well as all the other businesses along Beta Drive. As we work together to rebuild our economy and maintain a positive and successful community, I am grateful for an intelligent, insightful and caring Council, Administration and employees. While our opinions may vary from time to time, our allegiance is always to the welfare of Mayfield Village. So kudos to all of you, and also to our many residents who share their time and talents to improve the Village and keep us a successful, desirable and quietly confident community.